A boat slammed into a bridge on the Alafia River, killing a man on board.
Very early Monday morning, crews from Florida Fish and Wildlife recovered a 16-foot boat. The windshield was shattered and the boat was badly damaged.
“We’re going to be looking at everything that led up to the accident and then during and after. Unfortunately, with boating accidents, it’s tough to put pieces back together because it’s not like a street accident where we have skid marks and all that,” said Major Roger Young with FWC.
“We lose a lot of stuff in the water so we’ll do all we can to try to get all that information.”
Officials say at 1:30 a.m., the boat was heading west on the Alafia River when it slammed the bridge, sending its three occupants flying off.
Steven Cannon, 33, and his 12-year-old son Carson had minor injuries and were found a short time later. But it took hours until investigators found the body of 41-year-old Brent Davis.
Joseph Lamarca works at Inter-Bay Moorings Marina nearby. He tried to help investigators by looking around the shoreline for the body.
“The helicopter was going around all morning long, it was searching like a search pattern right above the marina, hovering above the water. We saw a cop boats around and then it all just stopped,” said Lamarca.
He says it’s tough for skilled boaters to navigate this river at night.
“It’s actually pretty difficult. There’s a lot of crab pots, shallow water, and you do have to be careful, even in the daytime,” he said.
“It’s easy to get distracted during the day. It’s even easier to get distracted and disoriented at night when you’re operating a vessel, so we stress to everybody the importance of your awareness of your surroundings, that even heightens when you’re operating at night,” said Major Young.
Lamarca said if the boat was following the posted speed limit, it shouldn’t have caused such a deadly accident. He adds that the bridge is well lit at night.
“They should have been able to navigate through that if they were operating the vessel safely,” explained Lamarca.
It is tragic that a fun boating trip ended with a death.
“It’s terrible. It’s terrible…If you could take anything away from it, just know that when you do go out in the water, you’re in a boat, you can lose your life out here. It’s not really a joke at all,” said Lamarca.
At this time its unknown if alcohol was a factor.
Steven Cannon and his son were treated and released from Tampa General Hospital. Cannon declined our interview request.